Tough times — As we announced in October, we've been aggressively managing our costs to bring them in line with the challenging economic conditions. Unfortunately, that means laying off employees — by far the toughest part of being a manager. Here's the email I sent to Yahoos today:

Yahoo Layoffs Today May Not Be Last — Yahoo began laying off 1,500 workers on Wednesday as part of a plan, announced in October, to slash expenses by $400 million a year. The cost cutting, however, may have to go deeper in the coming year. — “There could be additional staff reductions next year …

Watching layoffs in real time, on Twitter — If you want to watch a community event reveal itself in real time, there's really nothing like Twitter. As the Yahoo layoffs finally took hold this morning, newly former employees headed to Twitter to say farewell to the company; those staying reported what it was like for the rest.

TV has license to kill movies at iTunes, Netflix — Apple is an Internet retailer and Neflix is a Web video rental service, but Hollywood treats them as if they were potential competitors to TV broadcasters. — In the past two weeks, customers of iTunes and Netflix's streaming digital-movie service …

Google Executive Departs for LinkedIn — Dipchand “Deep” Nishar, a longtime Google Inc. executive who helped start its mobile business and other key products, is leaving the company to become a senior executive at LinkedIn Corp. — Mr. Nishar, 40, in January will become vice president …

Rumor Smash: No Zune Phone at CES — Sorry dudes. Just it first hand from Brian Seitz, Group Manager of Zune: “No Zune phone at CES.” — Well, at least no Zune Phone as we're hearing it. A few days ago, some analysts stirred up the rumors of a Zune specific piece of hardware this week …

WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane” — The first thing you'll notice about 2.7 is its new interface. From the top down, we've listened to your feedback and thought deeply about the design and the result is a WordPress that's just plain faster. Nearly every task you do on your blog will take fewer clicks …

Leaving Mozilla — I will be leaving Mozilla at the end of the year. I am sad to be leaving, but I am excited to go work on something I have always been passionate about. I wish I could tell you about it now, but that will have to wait for a while. — You will still get Mozilla security information here.

Gee, One Bold Storm coming up.... So here I am. In a hotel room in New York. The writing desk and its view of xth Avenue are all but obscured by:- — 7 x Mini USB cables: 2 of them are the new Micro type that Blackberry has switched to for the Storm only, the rest are standard.

Latest Firefox 3.1 Beta Adds Multi-Touch Support — On Monday, Mozilla released the latest beta version of Firefox 3.1. This “Beta 2” version of the popular web browser adds a number of new features across all supported platforms including: — Private Browsing Mode — Faster JavaScript engine

Google, Microsoft Back Off on Datacenter Plans — The two online giants rethink ambitious datacenter efforts, but for different reasons. — With the economy in the shape it's in, even Microsoft and Google are thinking twice before dropping $100 million on a new datacenter.

Apple stabilizes new Mac notebooks — Apple has released stabilizing updates for its new MacBook, shown here, as well as other systems introduced in October. — (Credit: Apple) — Apple has released several new firmware updates aimed at solving problems with its latest batch of notebooks.

2008 Year-End Google Zeitgeist — As the year comes to a close, it's time to look at the big events, memorable moments and emerging trends that captivated us in 2008. As it happens, studying the aggregation of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box gives us …

Court Halts Bogus Computer Scans — At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. district court has issued a temporary halt to a massive “scareware” scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and illegal pornography on consumers' computers.

MOBILE PHONES JAMMED NEAR BANK ATM — A Tokyo area bank has begun installing devices that jam cell phone signals in order to prevent elderly citizens from becoming victims of phone fraud. Swindlers have been targeting seniors, telling them to go to the bank and all the while stay on the line …

Yahoo amends controversial severance program — As part of its settlement agreement stemming from a shareholder lawsuit, Yahoo announced Wednesday it revised its controversial severance policy that had the potential of making a buyout of the company more expensive to a prospective buyer.

Memories of Past Slumps No Help in Silicon Valley — Over the past four decades, technologies for retaining information have increased at a startling rate. Yet technology suppliers seem to have trouble calling up some key information-the lessons of the past.